Tropical Storm Bret

The 5 day forecast for Tropical Storm Bret as of 11am.

As we get deeper into the summer, we’re going to see activity in the tropics really ramp up, but we may not have to wait much longer for a little preview of what’s to come. That is thanks to newly formed Tropical Storm Bret.

This visible image of Bret was taken from the GOES-13 satellite on July 18 at 11:31 UTC (7:31 a.m. EDT) and shows the storm over the northwestern Bahamas. Photo: NASA/NOAA GOES Project, Dennis Chesters

Bret is the second named storm of the 2011 Atlantic hurricane season and came to life around 5pm this past Sunday as Tropical Depression 2 with maximum sustained winds near 35 mph. About 15 hours later, TD2 was packing sustained winds of 50 mph which is enough to classify it as a tropical storm and was named Bret.

As of 11am today, Tropical Storm Bret still has maximum sustained winds of 50mph, is located about 90 miles north of the Bahamas, and is moving North-Northeast at about 5mph. The forecast for Bret shows some strengthening over the next couple days but it won’t reach hurricane status. More importantly, the forecast shows that Bret will stay offshore and not make any landfall on the East Coast, which is good news for everyone living close to the beach.

What does that mean for waves on the East coast? Well, giving Bret’s current track and forecasted size and strength, it may not mean much. We may see a small pulse of swell later in the week but it won’t be anything significant enough to get amped on. We’ll just have to keep our eyes on the reports the next couple days to see how it all pans out.

To stay updated be sure to stay locked on the National Hurricane Center’s website along with Weather Underground’s Tropical Weather page.

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